The latest expose style documentary from Academy Award nominated filmmaker Nonny De La Pena is Mama/M.A.M.A. – Mothers, Medicine And Madness, a look at an unusual and controversial condition named Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. Essentially MBSP is an alleged syndrome in which mothers (or other caregivers) intentionally mislead doctors by telling them that their children are ill. In turn, when prescriptions are given to treat whatever symptoms the mothers have supposedly made up, the children really do get sick and sometimes the results are fatal.

This one hundred minute documentary follows three specific cases where three different mothers from three very different backgrounds were diagnosed as suffering from MSBP. In all three cases the children were taken away from the mothers by social services. A support group has been built up around these diagnosis' and all three mothers have fought back against the doctors' allegations, claiming in some cases that the drug companies were involved and in other cases that one of the doctors only made this allegation to hide from the threat of a pending malpractice suit, thus discrediting the woman who was going to sue him.

The films raises the very frightening issue of whether or not doctors have too much control in this area. Considering how difficult and unusual this diagnosis is, should the medical profession have the legal right to call in social services to take the kids out of their parents' care? The film makes a good case that the children often suffer from even more severe ailments once removed from the home, and in one incredibly tragic case, have even died (in this case, essentially alone in a hospital bed, away from his mother). While Dr. Roy Meadow, the man who discovered this syndrome, argues that yes, it is a very real and very dangerous syndrome that does affect real people in real ways, much of his research and methods are called into speculation by the film, which claims he conducted much of his research on his own grandchildren (and in turn committed child abuse).

The film provides further evidence that many of the physical ailments suffered by these infants isn't caused by the mother but by a stomach calming prescription given to them by their pediatric doctors. Many of the Munchausen accusations are co-related to children who have had adverse side effects from these prescriptions that have resulted in serious illness and death. Is it a coincidence or do the pharmaceutical companies and medical community know more about this than they're letting on?

Mama/M.A.M.A. is a very interesting look at something I wasn't at all familiar with beforehand. It provides a lot of background information on the origins of the syndrome and plenty of tear jerking evidence to discredit its authenticity. This makes for an interesting view, if not an entirely balanced one. The film does tend to be more than a little bit one sided in its examination of the phenomena, and more details on what the drug companies have done to either promote their products or try and fix what is wrong with them would have rounded out the film a lot more and made it a lot more credible. Either way though, as it stands, Pena's film is an eye opener and if all it causes you to do is set out and do some of your own research into this, just to clarify a few things that the film doesn't touch on, that can only be a good thing.

Video:

The DVD presents the film in a non anamorphic 1.78.1 widescreen transfer. The movie was shot on video and because of that there is some video noise present from start to finish across the image. There is also no shortage of edge enhancement on the picture. That being said, the colors are nice and the flesh tones look lifelike and natural. Black levels remain pretty stable and there aren't any problems with compression artifacts that I noticed. This is hardly a reference quality transfer but for an independently produced shot on video documentary, it looks good enough.